Clinical and surgical outcomes of 3 cycles versus 6 cycles of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in advanced ovarian carcinoma

Epithelial cancers are the most common ovarian malignancy accounting for 90% of all type of ovarian cancer. Approximately 70% of women have advanced stage III or IV carcinoma ovary at the time of diagnosis as it has vague and nonspecific symptoms in early stage of disease. One of the treatment options in advanced ovarian cancer is interval debulking surgery following neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT). Patients characterized by high initial tumor dissemination, stage IV disease, poor performance or nutritional status, age ≥75 years with high surgical complexity score, achieving low residual disease was associated with morbidity of 63.6% and limited survival benefit. NACT in such patients is associated with increased optimal cytoreduction with less morbidity. Advantages of neoadjuvant chemotherapy include an increased rate of optimal debulking, less extensive surgery, reduced blood loss, lower morbidity, shortened hospital stay, and improved quality of life. The current recommendation is to perform interval debulking surgery early, after three cycles of NACT. In recent period the concept of late IDS (interval debulking surgery) has been introduced and it ABSTRACT